Project:Support desk

Welcome to the MediaWiki Support desk. This is a place where you can ask any questions you have about installing, using or administrating the MediaWiki software.

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See also

• Other places to ask for help

Before you post

• Check the FAQ and Errors and symptoms .
• If your question is about a specific feature, check the relevant technical manual , end-user help or extension page and consider asking on its talk page .
• For issues about the mediawiki.org website, report to Village Pump instead.
• Ask technical questions about Wikimedia websites on meta:Tech instead.

Post a new question

1. To help us answer your questions, please indicate which version of MediaWiki you are using, as found on your wiki's Special:Version page:
2. If possible, add $wgShowExceptionDetails = true;error_reporting( -1 );ini_set( 'display_errors', 1 ); to LocalSettings.php in order to make MediaWiki show more detailed error messages.
3. Please include the web address (URL) to your wiki if possible. It's often easier for us to identify the source of the problem if we can see the error directly.
4. To start a new thread, click the box with the text Add topic.

My website is inaccessible.

After I installed a certain extension, my website displays the message "The website was unable to fulfill my request." I need that extension; is there any way to fix this issue without disabling the extension? The version of the extension I'm using is correct, and my MediaWiki version is 1.45.1. XiaoyuWhaoYu (talk) 03:13, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

错! Try to use the guides for navigating MediaWiki. ~2025-36392-66 (talk) 22:10, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

@XiaoyuWhaoYu: What extension did you install? Does your site work correctly when you remove that extension from your LocalSettings.php file? Can you look in your web server logs for any error message? No one can help you very much with the information you've provided! Sam Wilson 12:08, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Many extensions have this issue. A typical example is the "Translation" extension. Once I remove it, the website works fine. But when I enable it again, the browser tells me "This website cannot be accessed." I'm sorry, I'm a beginner and I don't know how to fix this.I don't know how to view the log records of my server. XiaoyuWhaoYu (talk) 14:44, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

@XiaoyuWhaoYu: After enabling the extension, have you run the upgrade process? i.e. as described at Manual:Upgrading#Web_browser. You'll need to find (or set) the upgrade key in your LocalSettings.php file. This is presuming you aren't using the command line. Sam Wilson 06:46, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

I need help with creating a wiki on MediaWiki.

I just need something to create a wiki, that anybody can edit, just like Wikipedia. Could you help me with that? I'm using a mobile device that runs Android, could you help me with that? それを手伝ってくれますか？ ~2025-36392-66 (talk) 22:02, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

@~2025-36392-66 We do not offer hosting for wikis, we just make the software that runs them. You might want to look at Professional development and consulting for someone to assist you professionally with this. —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 19:59, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

offline / online

version 1.39.12

PHP 8.1.33

MariaDB 11.4.9

The wiki project works fine in offline mode (WAMP server), but after the login page I get this error. Can you help me?

[69a9a4a2e234fd4dd1bac259] /index.php/Sp%C3%A9cial:Version MWException: Parser state cleared while parsing. Did you call Parser::parse recursively? Lock is held by: #0 C:\wamp64\www\mediawiki-1.39.12\includes\parser\Parser.php(955): Parser->lock() Schub srx (talk) 08:26, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

@Schub srx is this with or without installed extensions ? Always try disabling extensions first, so that you can determine if it is a core or an extension problem. —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 19:58, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Tracking categories for CSS?

I've seen a couple of sites that have their CSS files in categories. As an example, For All Mankind fandom wiki (external links apparently aren't allowed in Support desk requests). How is that possible? I haven't found any information about it in the official MediaWiki documentation or in forums.

I'm using MediaWiki version 1.43.0 on a personal server, no website. Haven't updated to the latest version because one of the extensions I rely on isn't verified to work on the latest version yet. ~2026-56941-1 (talk) 16:19, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

@~2026-56941-1 You simply put the wikicode category into a CSS (or Javascript for that matter) comment (to keep the CSS valid). The page is wikiparsed for categorization and link registration, but only rendered as CSS (or JS). It's a bit of a trick and actually a trick that is being considered to be removed as it can be confusing. —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 19:57, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

So basically /* [[Category:CSS files]] */? I didn't see anything like that on the CSS pages I looked at, but it sounds reasonable. Kinda hope the trick isn't removed or, if it is, that something is added to make categorizing these pages possible. ~2026-56941-1 (talk) 20:00, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Obstacle Objection

Hello Reis3000

My account has been permanently banned. Many of my accounts have been deleted, and I want a fresh start. Could you please detail the reason for the ban? What can I do to avoid making mistakes? I request that the ban be lifted. Note: I was previously whitelisted. I am a Turkish Wikipedian. Thank you.Reis3000 (talk) 19:55, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Uses of RetryAfter in API resonses

I hope this is the right place for this question about the Query API; I couldn't find anywhere else. I'm working specifically in the context of en.wikipedia.org, but this presumably has general applicability.

Since the implementation of T400119 I've added client-side code to handle HTTP status code 429 (Too many requests; RFC6585) with a response header RetryAfter (RFC2616). But RetryAfter can also be provided with a 503 (Service unavailable; wait until we have fixed the service) or 3xx (wait before following the redirect). I'd like the fix to be more generic.

My questions:

• Does the mediawiki software ever generate a RetryAfter with 503 or 3xx responses?
• After waiting the time prescribed by a 429, am I guaranteed not to be told to wait again on the retry?

DavidBrooks (talk) 16:30, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

LSJ.gr Site searches not working properly

Hello

I am not sure if this is the right place, but I was sent here by the LSJ.gr website when I clicked its Help link. It is currently not working properly, but it does not have its own Contact that link I can find. When I do a word search and it returns more than 20 results and I try to view them it returns "Secure Connection Failed". It has been doing that for over a month or two now. perseus.tufts.edu has similar ongoing problems with its search that are botched / fixed by deleting extraneous text within the address of the following result pages. There seem to be some posts about LSJ.gr being hacked, but nothing about this effecting being able to view search results.

Is there a similar botch / fix for this, is it an ongoing problem at their end that time and patience will eventually fix, or is it some sort of stupid firewall / security / cookie problem at mine? All help, information or redirections gratefully received.

Thx

Nobbo69 (talk) 10:08, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

@Nobbo69 It is not really the right place, we are just the support forum for the mediawiki software, not the projects that are built with it. I did find: https://lsj.gr/wiki/LSJ:About#People, which you maybe can look into to find support. —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 15:43, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Extension pages are broken.

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T415725

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T389402

Many extension pages gives a error: Fatal exception of type "TypeError". Category:All extensions ~2026-60715-7 (talk) 12:46, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

I did the most recent changes to Template:Extension but they are as benign as they come, so I'm afraid this is not my doing but something borked with the current MW or something else running here. The fact that following the link to the previous version of the template in the history triggers the same error proves it. //tactica ~2026-61112-6 (talk) 14:04, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Maybe related to Project:Village Pump#Fatal errors on french translations, as the same temporary solution (adding "?action=purge") works. --Clump (talk) 14:13, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Yup, it seems to affect mostly translatable pages so it looks like that is it. Glad to know my changes aren't to blame for the fire at least... ~2026-61112-6 (talk) 14:30, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

internal error fatal on mediawiki.org

internal error fatal when tryingto access -> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:CirrusSearch/fr

[9bf904e3-77ed-4a0a-b223-450de3e5c5d7] 2026-01-28 16:12:25: Erreur fatale de type « TypeError » 

--Christian 🇫🇷 FR 🚨 (talk) 16:17, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

For me either. I can't open Manual:Dark mode or Manual:User rights/de for example without an error message. KimKelting (talk) 17:59, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, that's known about & is phab:T415725 :/ ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 18:17, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

I also get following:

Error interno

[e2a89906-cac7-4b82-b34f-46331602587] 2026-01-28 21:50:47: Excepción grave de tipo "TypeError". Lenis Felipe (talk) 21:54, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

The root page was accessible but not the translated pages. Seems to have been corrected at this time: operational now. Thanks all. --Christian 🇫🇷 FR 🚨 (talk) 12:25, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Was/is $wgAutoCreateTempUser considered experimental when using MW1.43?

I know from Project:Support_desk/Archive_24#Is_Manual:$wgAutoCreateTempUser_still_"experimental"? that this setting is no longer considered experimental, but I am on MW1.43 so wonder whether it would be OK to enable the setting on my wiki. Thanks. Jonathan3 (talk) 11:51, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

I would personally consider it to be 'stable' starting from 1.45. wgAutoCreateTempUser will work mostly starting from 1.43, but it might not be reliable, still not provide the correct tools for administrators etc. —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 10:09, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Thank you. I'll hold off on this one for now then. Jonathan3 (talk) 13:47, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Why <br> instead of just a new line?

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting
https://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_br.asp

Edit source, e.g. Wikipedia needs <br> (break line) to create a new line (not a paragraph: 2 new lines), just a new line is not interpreted: still 1 line.

Why? It's not WYSIWYG... Jebez1 (talk) 14:13, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

The primary answer to that would be.. To change it now, would break everything that was written before. As to why it is not a configuration option (the logical next best thing) is that there are actually LOTS of places inside the parser where this is an assumption, so even making that configurable is a pretty difficult process that probably few people want to pick up as a side project. If this is something you would like to see for you OWN wiki, i might suggest hiring a professional company to make such a thing a configuration option for your wiki. —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 15:40, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

It's related to https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Help_talk:Editing#%3Cbr%3E_works_not_well.

I understand it would break that was written before, if someone source wrotes new lines e.g.

hello

magic

world

& want rendered hello magic world in 1 line as actually: no, 3 lines as the source.

My question is: why this someone source writes new lines as above, why not he source writes in just 1 line?

What is the purpose of not interpreting the new lines, <br> needed? Jebez1 (talk) 16:15, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

So two reasons. 1. In HTML which of course is the spark of something like wikimarkup, a line break has no 'meaning'. That's a very technical reason. But 2, the point of wikis was to write prose. To write in paragraphs. So to encourage that, a parapgraph was essentially the only desirable output when people were writing. —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 09:49, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

If you only want to change things in specific places, you could use Extension:Poem. Jonathan3 (talk) 13:47, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

wiki.archlinux.org has not this extension, & I'm not the boss of this web site...

If I'm, better just interpret the new lines, no need <br> ... Jebez1 (talk) 20:17, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

A question about pywikibot

Hello! I have a question about pywikibot. What is the module in pywikibot, what can undo changes? Julius 12345 (talk) 15:36, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

I am sorry if this section is on wrong place. Julius 12345 (talk) 15:37, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Maybe Manual:Pywikibot/revertbot.py? Jonathan3 (talk) 13:46, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

MediaWiki installation error

Hello, i am currently installing mediawiki on my domain because i wanted to, and while things were going well, i got a internal error for some reason in the middle of the installation, the Name part to be exact. I can't get to the next part of the installation, and i am having problems.
I am using SQlite, and the error message is: [aX5IvnJDOhv6BHdyIcwRMwAAAAE] /mediawiki-1.45.1/mw-config/index.php?page=Name Error: Failed opening required. Do you guys have a fix for this?
I am also using the current version of MediaWiki, which is 1.45.1. Orsomeburger (talk) 18:32, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

I'm guessing it is an issue with the current version. Orsomeburger (talk) 21:50, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Still showing the same error, and i am still using SQlite. Does anybody have a fix for this yet? Is it an issue with my domain, mediawiki itself, what is happening? Orsomeburger (talk) 00:25, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

Update: I tried installing MediaWiki via the command line, and put a link to my domain. Basically, the installation with the command line worked, and i did put the LocalSettings.php in the files but for some reason now it shows "MediaWiki internal error." and a bunch of code. Does anybody know how to fix this now? Orsomeburger (talk) 00:57, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

Here is the error code. Original exception: [aYKZoQ16urqfA4qjyqPxEgAAAAU] /wiki/ Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBConnectionError: Cannot access the database: Connection refused (127.0.0.1) Orsomeburger (talk) 00:58, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

That sounds like your database connection is broken. Malyacko (talk) 08:34, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

Nevermind, it is fixed now. All i had to do is move the mediawiki files to the main domain. There are no errors now. Yes, i am still using SQlite Orsomeburger (talk) 01:11, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Certain characters not displaying correctly - UTF related?

My wiki is version 1.33.1. I've been using it for the past five years without much issue. However, at some point during this past month, certain characters began displaying as garbled text (•) - examples being bullet points (•), runes (ᚨ), and certain apostrophes (’). I haven't manually updated anything lately and I'm fairly tech illiterate when it comes to Mediawiki's inner-workings so I'm not sure why exactly this is happening. If anyone has an explanation that'd be greatly appreciated.

Here's a link to a page where the issue is fairly noticeable - johnisdead.withinhubris.com/Videos ~2026-73279-2 (talk) 18:33, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Sounds like invalid encoding - did you change anything? Also you do need to upgrade - 1.33.1 is quite outdated by now. Leaderboard (talk) 15:18, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Found the issue - turns out one of my extensions, LinkTarget, was being loaded in a strange way in my LocalSettings.php.

For some reason I was using require_once "$IP/extensions/SimpleTooltip/SimpleTooltip.php"; instead of wfLoadExtension( 'LinkTarget' );. Making that change fixed the issue.

Also yeah, I probably should. Just now updated to 1.35.0 and will try to get a newer version put in place soon. Thanks. ~2026-73279-2 (talk) 17:36, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Broken page Categories in 1.45.1

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T414599
Resolved

I've recently met the error while migrating DB while updating the Wiki: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Project:Support_desk/Archive_24#h-DBQueryError_while_migrating_table_'categoryLinks'_on_PostgreSQL-20251226155200

After no answer to that ticket I've tried to fix the broken 'categoryLinks' migration script myself excluding empty "AND ()" from that query (if $ns is null then don't include the condition into the query). The fix worked and I've finally updated the Wiki from 1.44.2 to 1.45.1 with no errors. But since the update almost all Category pages are empty but some contains very few page links. Maintenance scripts "rebuildall" and "refreshLinks" doesn't help. How can I fix the categories?

Also I tried to create new page with category link but it didn't show in the on the Category page. Categories are broken in general? MidnightLG (talk) 13:36, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

I had a similar problem on upgrading from 1.39 to 1.43 in that a lot of pages were uncategorised and those maintenance scripts didn't help. The obvious differences are that you edited the update script and categorisation now doesn't seem to work for you at all.

Anyway, what I did was use AWB (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser) to null edit every relevant page. I think alternatively you could use pywikibot to "touch" all pages. Jonathan3 (talk) 13:44, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Editing the page manually like mixing the Category links order in the end of the page and saving it doesn't help. Then I guess that touching pages with the bot won't help either. I also have few Categories that contains some page links but not all the pages that must be linked there. MidnightLG (talk) 13:56, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Problem was caused by invalid value in field linktarget.lt_namespace with value 0 instead of 14 for categorylinks that linked to lt_id of this table. So, error was caused by broken migration scripts. Solved by deletion of the invalid rows in both linktarget and categorylinks tables, then launching refreshLinks and recountCategories scripts. Topic can be closed. MidnightLG (talk) 17:31, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

I've filed this as phab:T416413. —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 23:00, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Question about redisJobRunnerService and redisJobChronService

Hi, I've tried to improve the documentation on the use of Redis for MediaWiki sites, though I do hope others more knowledgeable than me can jump in and have a better look at it.

Because information on using cronjobs for the job runner is few and far between, I hesitantly gave ChatGPT a try and one of the suggestions it gave surprised me. My impression, as was that of others, is that you need both redisJobRunnerService and redisJobChronService to run in the background. What ChatGPT suggested, however, is that you can use one or the other: either redisJobRunnerService if you can ensure it runs continuously, or redisJobChronService if you run it every 2 minutes or so. https://github.com/wikimedia/mediawiki-services-jobrunner does not make that claim but then it does not say anything to the contrary either, merely that those services are available and what they do.

Any clarification would be welcome! Rand(1,2022) (talk) 11:44, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

Composer fails since a few days

composer update --no-dev fails:

• - Root composer.json requires phpunit/phpunit 9.6.21 (exact version match: 9.6.21 or 9.6.21.0), found phpunit/phpunit[9.6.21] but these were not loaded, because they are affected by security advisories ("PKSA-z3gr-8qht-p93v"). Go to https://packagist.org/security-advisories/ to find advisory details. To ignore the advisories, add them to the audit "ignore" config. To turn the feature off entirely, you can set "block-insecure" to false in your "audit" config.
• Problem 2
• - Root composer.json requires johnkary/phpunit-speedtrap ^4.0 -> satisfiable by johnkary/phpunit-speedtrap[v4.0.0, v4.0.1].
• - johnkary/phpunit-speedtrap[v4.0.0, ..., v4.0.1] require phpunit/phpunit ^7.0 || ^8.0 || ^9.0 -> found phpunit/phpunit[7.0.0, ..., 7.5.20, 8.0.0, ..., 8.5.52, 9.0.0, ..., 9.6.34] but these were not loaded, because they are affected by security advisories ("PKSA-z3gr-8qht-p93v"). Go to https://packagist.org/security-advisories/ to find advisory details. To ignore the advisories, add them to the audit "ignore" config. To turn the feature off entirely, you can set "block-insecure" to false in your "audit" config.
• Running update with --no-dev does not mean require-dev is ignored, it just means the packages will not be installed. If dev requirements are blocking the update you have to resolve those problems.

i overcame with the following though isn't good idea in production: composer install --no-dev --no-security-blocking, but i will set up crom scratch

MW: 1.45.1, PHP 8.3.30

Composer version 2.9.5 2026-01-29 11:40:53

PHP version 8.3.30 (/opt/plesk/php/8.3/bin/php)

any ideas ? ~2026-83879-3 (talk) 10:27, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

this error occurred when i tried to add WikiBase extension --- see Wikibase/Installation - MediaWiki ~2026-83879-3 (talk) 10:42, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

Help with a Featured Article Box

I need help with creating and inserting a "Featured Article" box into my Fandom box on my Wiki Fandom page. I also need help inserting a Discord Server on my wiki, along with a star that goes along with my Wiki Fandom

ER98765 (talk) 16:51, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

Pre-1.19 versions of CheckUser

Hello, does anyone know where the pre-1.19 versions of the CheckUser extension are? this is the earliest version I can find. ~2026-87581-7 (talk) 20:48, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

Disregard that, I found them here. ~2026-87581-7 (talk) 21:01, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

where are the NS translations ?

fighting since 1 hour: please where do I find that the NS "Help" is translated as "Aide" (in french)  ? Thanks. --Christian 🇫🇷 FR 🚨 (talk) 13:13, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

Missing Special:Account Security

I just set up my wiki recently Version: 1.45.1 and I don't seem to have the special page account security. ~2026-89092-6 (talk) 18:32, 9 February 2026 (UTC)